and Hell,
how to gain Heaven and avoid misery. I left them with a more favorable
impression than I otherwise should have had. Severe measures had failed to
improve them, but they seemed susceptible of kind treatment, and some of
them gave hopes of amendment.

9 _mo_. 21.--Visited the Boys' and Girls' First-day Schools.
Breakfasted with thirty teachers (young men) at the schools. About 370
boys present in two rooms. None are taken under fourteen years of age.
Also a large class of adults. I addressed the two companies: then went to
the girls; heard them read, and addressed them. There are about twenty
young women teachers, and perhaps 270 to 300 girls.

The morning meeting was large. I was much pressed in spirit to speak on
the nature of the fall of man, and on the necessity of having clear views
of gospel truth. I was told afterwards that there was a Unitarian present.

He attended the Quarterly Meeting at Leicester on the 24th, and the two
following days met companies of young persons, who were, he says, "much
tendered in spirit." After some similar service at Stourbridge and
Coventry, he returned on the 27th to Stamford Hill. He remarks in his
Diary: "I believe the service of the young Friends in the First-day
Schools has been a blessing to themselves as well as to their pupils."

The next month John Yeardley made a religious visit to Hertfordshire, and
had two social-religious meetings with the younger Friends at Hitchin;
after which he remained at home until the beginning of the Twelfth Month,
when he left England for Nismes.

One object in this journey was to revisit the school which had been
established by himself and Martha Yeardley in 1842: another was the
renewal of his declining health. Susan Howland and Lydia Congdon, from the
United States, who were then on a visit to Europe, were bound for the same
destination, and John Yeardley gave them his company.

12 _mo_. 6.--On entering France, he says, we found a sprinkling of
snow and frost, but on leaving Lyons we left all the wintry weather
behind, and travelled on under a hot sun, and bright, cloudless sky, which
seemed to impart to us all fresh vigor and spirits. S. Howland remarked,
In such an atmosphere she felt another being.

At Nismes, the party found Eliza P. Gurney, and Robert and Christine
Alsop, on their way home from the valleys of Piedmont. John Yeardley
lodged at the school, spent much of his time with the children, and with
the other En